


Until The Real Thing Comes Along

by Rabenherz



Series: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, M/M, Team Bonding, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 09:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22847797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabenherz/pseuds/Rabenherz
Summary: Arcade is not the type of person who will get up and dance in a crowded room, or who will follow a near-stranger to the end of the world for the sake of a promise and a bad pick-up line. But on nights like this, he wonders.
Relationships: Arcade Gannon/Courier, Male Courier/Arcade Gannon
Series: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628497
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Until The Real Thing Comes Along

It is hot in the Wrangler, unbearably so. The kind of heat that reeks of sweat and promise, smoke mixed with spilled drink. It is vile and wonderful, and even sequestered in his little corner by the bar, Arcade does not feel as apart from it all as he usually does. 

The beer is a little stale, but no matter, he sips it idly and watches the Courier spin that scribe girl in a dance that is much too fast to match the crooner droning dully from the radio. They do not care if they stumble now and then, but only laugh and get right back into it, riled on by the whistles and cheers from a nearby group of drunk locals. Even when he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, the Courier has this easy grace about him that is illusive to all but the truly confident. A smile and a glance and a terrible joke, and all of a sudden you want to tell him all your secrets.

Like the cause of today’s little celebration - a deal brokered between the Garrets and the Followers in the span of an afternoon. Just like that. Like it was easy. It’s not that Arcade doesn't understand Julie’s reservations. In an ideal world the Followers should not be dealing with whoremongering casino owners, but after months and months of peering over the same experiments and papers to the ever present chorus of suffering and need in the fort, it feels damn good to see someone actually do something for a change. 

Taking a deep bow and kissing her hand with an exaggerated flourish, the Courier releases Veronica back to her seat, and Arcade decides that he can worry about his slipping morals some other day. Not tomorrow, though - apparently they are going to see The King tomorrow. He downs what little remains of his drink, and finds it replaced before he has a chance to protest. At the other end of the Bar, Cassidy tips her hat at him, before returning to whatever it may be she and that dour-faced NCR goon could possibly have to say to each other.

Arcade’s head swims a little with it all. He only met Arthur and his motley crew a few days ago, but it feels a little like he has been swept away in a desert storm. They are such an unlikely collection of people, come together in such an unlikely place. Arcade has read a thing or two about pre-war Vegas in his time, knows it for what it was; an overblown facsimile of a real city, in which everything was bigger and better and worse than out in the real world. A place of excess grown out of nothing. It suits people like the Courier, who will swoop into your life all wide smiles and winking eyes.  _ Come along, you beautiful strangers, _ they'll say.  _ We've got things to do. Some hell to raise. _

Like now. 

Arcade’s stomach coils as he watches the Courier cross the room towards him, wild-eyed and wicked. The courier runs a hand through his hair, a sweaty mess from the heat and his exertion, and it is undeniably appealing in a vulgar sort of way.

Arcade swallows, wishing he didn’t notice, then chiding himself, because the only reason he agreed to follow Arthur in the first place was because he noticed. 

“Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it,” Arcade says, preempting his meaning. 

Arthur smiles, and holds out his hand regardless, open-palmed like he is making an offering. Someone, likely a member of Arthur’s previous audience, wolf-whistles encouragingly, making Arcade cringe. 

“Come on, Arcade,” Arthur says, drawing closer, ”be more fun than Cass and Boone.”

“I keep telling you, I’m really, really not.” And he isn’t, that’s the thing, not like this. Arcade is not the type of person who will get up and dance in a crowded room, or who will follow a near-stranger to the end of the world for the sake of a promise and a bad pick-up line. But on nights like this he wonders at the life he’d lead if he was that sort of person. 

A short one, most likely.

Arcade holds his beer bottle loosely in his lap, two-handed as though it were a shield between them, but it does not seem to deter the Courier, who steps closer still and covers Arcade’s hands with his own, gently prying them apart.

“I’m very rarely wrong about people, you know,” he murmurs, whisky-stained breath a shadow against Arcade’s ear, against his neck. The bottle somehow ends up on the counter behind them. “And you are not nearly as boring as you say you are.”

The hair at the back of Arcade’s neck stands on edge. He feels vaguely ill, prickly at the uninvited proximity. It is too much, too fast.

“You’d be surprised,” he says, strained, sharper than he intends, but it does make the Courier back off somewhat, leave Arcade’s personal space even if he doesn’t let go of his hand. 

There is no apology, at least not a spoken one, just the sweep of a rough thumb across the back of Arcade’s knuckles and a rueful smile. “Come join the others,” Arthur says gently, not pushing, for once, only asking.

Arcade sighs.

“Alright,” he says, and lets Arthur pull him to his feet. 


End file.
